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Articles written on Marketing Research: All the Do and Don't

Marketing Research: The Competitive Edge in an Information Age

Getting the Facts & Figures for Marketing Solutions

Getting to know Your Customer Better with Focus Group Discussions

Getting the Best from Your Marketing Research Agency

Since 1984, Forbes has been one of the most active full service research companies in the Asia Pacific, providing a comprehensive range of services covering more than 10 countries. [d]

Corporate Philosophy

We believe research makes a difference in decision making. Good research reduces the risk of management decisions and increases the chances of success. Timely feedback from the market often eliminates nasty surprises. It is our role to support our clients with critical information that will impact their decision on whether to launch new products or invest in new facilities, etc.

Geographical Coverage

We conduct market research in all Asian countries with a strong focus on the high growth economies of Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam and Hong Kong, where business opportunities are growing in leaps and bounds. Our geographical coverage also extend to Asian economic powerhouses like China, Japan, Taiwan and Korea.

Our People

Among our professional and technical staff, we have researchers and consultants trained in Consumer Research, Marketing, Engineering (Mechanical, Civil Engineering, Building), Survey research and Statistics.

Our Consultants

Our research directors have been in the profession for close to two decades. Their broad experience cuts across industry, research type and technique utilisation.

Chan Wai Ming

   Name: Dr. Chan Wai Ming

   Position: Research Director

   Ph.D (S.Aust), MBA (W. Ont), BSc Hons (NUS), MBCS, MSCS.

Experience : Wai Ming has more than 19 years of experience in the areas of survey research and marketing consultancy.

Wai Ming's personal research interest is in the area of Customer satisfaction, Employee/organisational climate satisfaction, Brand/product image positioning, Market sizing, segmentation and needs identification, and SWOT analysis.

He was seconded from Mindef to the Research and Statistics Unit of Ministry of National Development from 1974 to 1976 performing a full range of research functions.

Besides research exposure, Wai Ming is also interested in computer and networks. He is a Chartered Information System Analyst and a member of the British Computer Society. He dabbles a lot into technology and is instrumental in introducing new technologies into surveys.

Wai Ming used to lecture at the TDB Export Institute ‑ Neils Brocks International Business School on market research, he was also an MBA course supervisor with SIM, and spent a period of time as part-time lecturer and tutor at NUS.

Publications: Wai Ming's has written articles in the Business Times, Straits Times, Directions magazine, Australian Alumni magazine, Her World magazine, Association of Management Consultants and Singapore Institute of Building magazine on business management, entrepreneurship, market research and information technology.

Countries worked: He has done research and consultancy projects in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Brunei, Vietnam, Hong Kong, China, India, Australia, Canada, and USA.

Awards: NUS overall top student Awarded Hou Ke Hua scholarship; Business Times / DHL businessman of the year essay contest first prize winner

Presentations: Wai Ming has made personal presentations of research results to The Honourable The Chief Justice Yong Pung How, DPM Lee Hsien Loong, Rear Admiral
Teo Chee Hean, Minister Wong Kan Seng, BG George Yeo, Minister Yeo Cheow Tong, Prof. Jayakumar, and Permanent Secretaries of various Ministries.

Our research directors have been in the profession for close to two decades. Their broad experience cuts across industry, research type and technique utilisation.

Gwendy Khaw Siew Heok

Name: Ms Gwendy Khaw Siew Heok

Position: Field Director

M Inst M (UK) AICSA (UK) Chartered secretary & administrator

Gwendy has more than 20 years of experience in survey research, she was with the Ministry of National Development, Straits Times Research and Information and subsequently was field manager of a research company prior to joining Forbes.

Gwendy is experienced in managing large-scale house-to-house and telephone surveys, as well as central location surveys of consumer products including conducting taste and packaging tests.

She is instrumental in drawing up standard procedures for quality assurance and control, telephone callbacks, editing, coding and data cleaning.

Gwendy administers and updates our sampling frame which is a Master House frame comprising some 840,000 households. She also perform sample extraction, quota controls, and designs sampling methodologies.

Infrastructure and Equipment

Fully equipped Focus Group Facilities including discussion room, observation room with one-way mirror, audio and video recording, and closed circuit TV.

Forbes has multiple servers networked to deliver SPSS analysis and internet based solutions to support the surveys. We have CATI stations to run national telephone interviews.

Keypunching of data from questionnaires are things of the
past. In Forbes, we use industrial high volume scanner coupled with TELEform, a form processing software to read markings and handwriting on hardcopy questionnaires directly into SPSS formatted files.

We have internet based mobile data gathering solutions on Pocket PC platforms. PDAs and laptops can be used as direct data capture devices.

As one of the earliest providers of online internet-based surveys, they are increasing becoming a larger and larger percentage of our surveys. Clients who have used our internet surveys include: Prime Minister’s Office, MOF, PSA, MOE and many others.